Musings of a Madman
by brit.brutal
Summary: He told Them he was bored. They gave him a spiral notebook and pack of crayons. He never thought the finished product would be something so strange, creative, and wonderful. He never thought he'd love something that he made so much.
1. Chapter 1

**Spoilers:** Seasons 1-5 just to be safe, especially the finale of Season 5.

**Disclaimer:** It all belongs to David Shore and Fox. Am borrowing. I own made up character and fictional plot.

**Author's Note:** This was an idea I came up with after going through old scrapbooks I used to keep. They were composition notebooks I kept for each year of high school that I put pictures, song lyrics, guitar tabs, stories, fan fictions, and more in. I thought, _What if House did the same thing since he would be so lonely in the institution? _Only thing is, I couldn't post the pictures of his friends and acquaintances that he will be drawing as well as writing about.

**Extended Summary**: It only took him a week to go crazy (no pun intended) from boredom. After the first session with his psychologist, it is recommended that House find something constructive to keep him busy with. He keeps a notebook of drawings, quotes, diary entries, letters to people, escape plans, and clippings from newspapers and magazines. He also develops a new found fondness for stickers. Anything in italics is what House puts in his notebook.

A familiar masculine scrawl dominated the top quarter portion of the first page in the green spiral notebook. It is, afterall, what Idiot Shrink told him to do. He tried to block as much of the stupid session he could out of his memory. He focused on his writing.

_Entry 1: It's Monday, May 18__th__, 2009 and those idiots won't give me any Vicodin. I've vomited five times in the past two days. I can't even make a sum to how many times I've puked since I've been here. I know that my spleen tried to come out along with the mess a few times. You think that would scare the morons into letting me have something stronger than aspirin or Tylenol. I think I've lost weight from barely eating, and purging constantly. I'm not sure if I have or not, though. I want to go home to my guitars and piano and scotch and pills. The idiots are trying to make me go to group therapy. I told them no; they can't make me without my consent._

Greg House looked at what he had written down so far in cerulean blue crayon—they wouldn't give him a pen or pencil of any kind. He pled for markers. They, as he referred to the institution's staff, said if he wanted markers or any other colorful writing utensil, he would have to join arts and crafts hour with the other patients and socialize. Until he changed his mind, he would be stuck with the twenty-four crayons.

He was sitting in his room. It was smaller than his bedroom back home and was complete with a bed, table, and barred window. The walls were bathed in the cliché white, sterile paint. He was dressed in the cliché loony gown (as he called it) complete with slippers. He was on his bed, back against the wall, feet dangling over the side.

He reread his journal entry. The handwriting was similar to that of what he'd scribble on the whiteboard in his office back at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. The last sentence of his entry burned in his head,

'_They can't make me without my consent.'_

How many times had he done something against the will of all of his patients' consents?

A scary thought entered his rattled mind and he recorded it in red-orange crayon.

_What if they make me consent? What if they do all kinds of things to me without my permission?_

He was no longer in House's World. He no longer had PPTH and Cuddy as a safety net. He was no longer in charge or a bully. He was weak, and he was weak _minded_. He didn't call the shots. He was a victim. He was in distress and so far as he knew, no one would be coming to his rescue anytime soon.

Thinking about the institution and burly orderlies who watched over him was beginning to scare him, so he flipped to a new and random page. He put the cerulean and red-orange crayons back in the box and took a green one out and began to write a letter to Wilson. Only it was more of what he would say to his only friend if they were talking.

_Thanks for coming in and visiting me. It only took you a week. I would have been discharged before you decided to show._

He wrote how he thought Wilson would respond as well.

_Wilson: I've been busy. I've been helping out with your team more than usual._

_Me: What, they aren't competent enough to do things themselves? Why couldn't they figure out sooner that I wouldn't always be there to hold their hands?_

_Wilson: [He gives that exasperated sigh that annoys the crap out of me and pinched the bridge of his nose] Foreman's doing the best he can to be a good leader. They're all still shaken up about Kutner's death_

_Me: Oh, my God! That happened a month ago! They should be more worried about me!_

_Wilson: Everybody is worried about you._

_Me:…Even Cuddy?_

_Wilson: [It took him almost a year to respond] Yes._

_Me: Well, what's she been saying? I'm sure you two keep up with your weekly pow-wows._

_Wilson: She said…_

House stopped writing. He didn't know what to write about Cuddy. He couldn't imagine anything he wanted to hear that Cuddy has said about him. It couldn't be anything good. Nothing could be good ever again.

Especially after he realized that everything he had with Cuddy had been a hallucination.

**{****Author's Note:**** Thanks for reading! I don't know if it was hard to follow or not. Reviews are profoundly appreciated and would be spectacular! :D}**


	2. Chapter 2

**Spoilers:** Seasons 1-5 just to be safe, especially the finale of Season 5.

**Disclaimer:** It all belongs to David Shore and Fox. Am borrowing. I own made up character and fictional plot.

**Two.**

_He's looking at me like there's something wrong with me._

"Mr. House, could you close your notebook, please? It's good to see you've taken my advice and found yourself a hobby, but I'm trying to have a session with you."

_He's talking to me like I'm some brain-damaged kid._

"If you aren't going to put your notebook away, can I at least see what it is you're writing about?"

House looked up from the nearly full page of paper with purple scrawls. Purple was for therapy. He never replied to Idiot Shrink. Instead, he wrote his replies in the book. He shut the notebook and hugged it to his chest and gave a fake smile. "It's put away."

"Under your chair, please."

Instead of complying, he tossed a snarky remark, "You want me to sit under the chair? What the hell kind of therapy is this?"

Idiot Shrink rubbed his temples, slightly annoyed, "Mr. House—"

"Oh, just because I'm locked up in a damn loony bin means I don't get my title back?" People called him 'House' with or without the 'Doctor' in front of it ever since he left medical school. And now that, along with seventy percent of his dignity was taken away from him, too.

"Not with me you don't. I'm the doctor, you're the patient. Now, put your notebook under your chair or I'm afraid I'll have to confiscate it."

House sighed and slid it under there, but rested his feet upon it.

"Now remove the hat and sunglasses." Chester Baldwin, alias 'Idiot Shrink,' demanded.

House's thoughts scoffed at the man. _That's not going to happen. _Then he said aloud, "Aw, come on, Baldy, I gotta rep for the Gravedigger! And I gotta wear my shades inside. Got a sudden case of light sensitivity."

"Mr. House, you either play by my rules or you don't play at all. If you do not follow my rules, I will take everything you own as punishment and not give it back for a long, long time."

House nearly made a 'you gotta be kidding me,' face. _He sounds like a little kid. Alright, fine. _House retaliated with the same kind of childlikeness and whined, "Aw, pwease? Just this onnnnce?"

Idiot Shrink was defeated. He sighed in that aggravated way of his again, "Okay. But only this once." A pause as he readied himself for the session. "So, tell me. How has your first week here been?"

"It sucks. I need better meds. I'm in pain. No one seems to understand that."

"Now, Mr. House, you're only allowed a certain kind of medicine with a specific amount of dosage for the pain. The severity of the pain is in your head. You're feeling phantom pains. If you stopped harping on it, it will all go away."

The crippled doctor gaped at the psychologist. He reminded him of a hybrid antagonist made out of all of his past enemies. Well, two anyway. Vogler and Tritter. "Whatever."

"Why don't you ever take walks around the hospital with your orderlies to give that leg some exercise? We could even arrange some physical therapy!"

House only shrugged.

"Come now, Mr. House. You've got to find something to do around here. There are plenty of recreational things to participate in." Then he asked the inevitable question that House didn't want to talk about because it wasn't any of Baldy's business. "What do you do in that notebook of yours?"

House shrugged again and decided to stay vague with an answer. "I draw and write. I want markers. They won't give me any."

"So you like to scrapbook!" Idiot Shrink went on as though he hadn't heard House speak in the first place. "Why don't you join the other patients in the arts and craft room! You could make friends."

"I already have friends, Baldy." House was hateful and cold when he stated that, almost sneering at the psychologist.

The reply was just as cold, and hurtful, "Funny how I've never seen any visit you yet."

House gave a confused look. "One came and visited me last night! We talked about work and how everybody is too incompetent to do anything without me and how everybody is worried about me. We even talked about…" And he cut himself off. Had Wilson really come to visit or was it just a memory? Or worse, did it never happen? House could distinctly recollect thinking about Wilson and having some sort of conversation with his best friend the previous night.

House stopped. Grabbed his notebook and flipped through it until he found what he was looking for. The green conversation. And how Wilson said he's talked to Cuddy and she—

But the conversation had ended abruptly. Why?

"Because it wasn't real," he murmured quietly, "Because you didn't know what to say for her. Because it wasn't going to be anything good."

Dr. Baldwin leaned forward in his chair. "So you _have _made process. You've admitted that something you thought was real is not real at all. Greg, I am here to help you. I want to see what is wrong with you to make you all better so you can get out of here and get back to your life. And to your friends."

"Friend," House corrected him. "I only have one friend." He put his sunglasses back on and felt a single tear slip down his cheek.

He was back in his room. Therapy had killed him just as much as it had last week. He was on his bed again, his notebook open to a fresh page, a black crayon in his hand. He was preparing to write a letter.

_Dear Cuddy,_

He looked at that and frowned and drew a single line through the Dead of Medicine's surname. He started fresh, but on the same page and using the same colored crayon.

_Dear Lisa,_

_I'm sorry._

_Sincerely, _

_House_

But he was frowning again as he scratched out the latter two words and replaced them with,

_Forgive me,_

_Greg._

He put the crayon back in its box and put the box and the journal under his pillow. If They couldn't find it, They couldn't take it.

Nobody would _ever _take that from him as long as he lived. He would make sure of that.

**[****Author's Note:**** Thanks to everybody who read and reviewed! It means a lot that people actually enjoy my work! More reviews would be even more spectacular! :D And I apologize if House seems a bit out of character. I like to believe that his mind is so strained that he really **_**is **_**going out of his head with fear and depression enough to make him cry since he doesn't have the pills to make it all go away anymore. Wow, run-on sentence there, haha.]**


	3. Chapter 3

**Spoilers:** Seasons 1-5 just to be safe, especially the finale of Season 5.

**Disclaimer:** It all belongs to David Shore and Fox. Am borrowing. I own made up character and fictional plot.

**Three.**

It was raining outside. House rolled out of bed and limped over to the window to raise the blind and look outside. It was pitch-black dark despite the fact that it wasn't even nine o'clock yet. He loved when it was so miserable outside. The rain was like his own miserable loneliness falling down on everybody that came in contact with outside. He pressed his hand on the window and thought about all the times he rode his motorcycle in the rain. Then he remembered crashing it and turned to his bed, almost as though looking outside was what caused such bad memories.

"I remember the crash that killed me," Amber stated from House's bed.

"Haven't seen you in awhile. Where's Kutner?"

"With Taub. Watching over him for the night. He decided to go drinking alone."

House sat in the chair meant for the small table in there. "You're the one that got me landed in here. Find a way to get me out."

She cocked her head to the side and looked at him slyly. "Why would you want that? Why would you want out? You have everything you'll ever need here. Meds, food, no more clinic hours or dealing with idiots back at the hospital."

"This isn't my life. I don't shine in here."

"No," she stood and sat on the table, close to him, "You miss the puzzles. It's driving you crazy that you have no clue what the case Foremen and the others have is about. It's killing you that it's stumping them because you know that you could solve it."

House stared hard in Amber's face. "Why don't you go torment Wilson? Get him landed in here so I can have somebody to talk to."

"You have me to talk to you."

He hobbled to his bed, "I'd rather have Kutner."

She gave a hurt and mean look and then was gone.

He lay back in bed and balled his fists to his eyes. This was _not _happening. Just when he thought he got rid of her, she was always back again. Sure she was a visual representation of his conscience and subconscious or whatever, but it unsettled him to see her now that he knew she was the reason he was put in here.

He turned to his side and faced the wall. Would it be a long time before he could fall asleep? He didn't fall asleep until well past midnight last night. His stomach had kept him up sick and he vomited repeatedly. He grabbed his throbbing leg and squeezed it shortly. Yes, it hurt less, but he didn't want to let Them win, so he would fake more pain. At that moment, he wished that he had hallucinated pains rather than just hallucinations.

He slipped his hand under his fluffy pillow and felt the cool metal of the spiral on his notebook. He wanted to put something more in it but didn't know what. Instead, he drifted towards sleep and let it take over completely.

He was flipping through the newest issue of Teen People magazine when his door was unlocked and a huge blonde guard stepped in the threshold.

"Hey Tiny," House remarked and looked back at his reading material.

"You have a visitor."

House looked up so quickly that he almost got whiplash. "Who?"

But the guard stepped out and the visitor stepped in and shut the door behind him.

"I heard you went crazy and wanted to come down here to see it for myself."

Detective Michael Tritter took it upon himself to sit on the edge of House's bed.

"What made you think _I_ wanted you to see me?" House stood up, nervous that Tritter should find his notebook. He hoped Tritter would go for the empty chair. When he did, House sat on the bed. "Last time I saw you, I beat you. You lost the case."

"I remember. I remember everything the judge said, too. About how she said you had really good friends. Have any of them come by to see you? Or is everybody glad that Princeton's bully is gone for good?"

"Howdid you hear about me losing it? Did I already ask? I forget."

Tritter stretched his legs out and looked back at House, "I stopped by the hospital because a cop friend of mine was in a nasty wreck. See what happens when people are put in hospitals? Their friends and people who care about them stop by to see them."

"You're here to see me," House pointed out.

But Tritter went on as though he hadn't heard House speak, "Dr. Chase fixed him up in the ER. I asked him about you and he told me everything. I see that your old team quit on you Did they finally give up on writing prescriptions for you?"

"No. Chase went to ER and Cameron followed. Foreman came crawling back to me."

"What about Wilson?" Tritter offered, giving a trying look, almost as though he already knew the answer.

_Yeah, what about Wilson?_

"He's still there. I'm surprised you didn't freeze his bank account for still associating himself with me. Did you?"

"Why don't you ask him yourself? Or has he come by to see you? If he had, he probably would have told you I was at the hospital two days ago. What about Dr. Cuddy for that matter?"

House shrugged, "They'll see me when they have time."

"You seem so non-chalant and humbled. If only you had gone to rehab sooner and experienced this two years ago. Probably could have avoided this whole mess."

"You're blaming this on the drugs?"

Tritter chuckled and stood, "I've seen it a million times." He was at the door now. "It's sad to see a man without friends, House. You better make some here."

"Yeah, I'll see you never. Bye-bye now, Mikey."

"Think about what I said, House. A man without friends is nobody." And then he was gone.

For the first time, House really was taking something Tritter said to heart.

_Maybe I should see if I can call Wilson._

**(****Author's Note:**** I put Tritter in here because I am a David Morse fan girl and I loved his character in season 3 despite the fact a TON of viewers hated the cop. I wanted to sort of redeem his character. More reviews? :D Thanks for reading!)**


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